Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of Führer und Reichskanzler in 1934. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of about six million Jews and millions of other victims.
He had a traumatic childhood where his father would abuse him and beat him up due to his refusal to go to school, and his mother was the only person who would defend him. Hitler loved singing, he would sing prayers in the Church choirs and also took singing lessons, he even considered becoming a priest after growing up, though his passion for music drove him to fantasize about becoming a musicia. In 1900, his younger brother Edmund died from measles that left a deeper impact on him; Hitler changed from a confident and outgoing child to a detached and isolated one.
August Kubizek, a childhood friend of Hitler who wrote a book 'The Young Hitler I knew' mentions a Jewish girl named Stephanie Marie Isak in his book, who was allegedly his first love and a teenage crush, and writes about Adolf's disturbing expressions of his feelings that sounded menacing sometimes. He states, Adolf's passion for Stephanie began in 1905, when he was 16 years old and still attending school in Linz. Kubizek describes the first time he heard about Hitler's obsession as follows: "One evening in the spring of 1905, as we were taking our usual stroll, Adolf gripped my arm and asked me excitedly what I thought of that slim blonde girl walking along the Landstrasse arm-in-arm with her mother. 'You must know, I'm in love with her,' he added resolutely. Kubizek mentions that Hitler would often ask him to stalk her and update him about what she does all day. He also writes that Stephanie loved to dance and had taken lessons, Hitler on the one other hand hated dancing, he believed that Stephanie dances because of social obligations and there are none of her personal interests attached with it, and he had reportedly said, "When she becomes my wife, she won't have the slightest desire to dance". According to Kubizek, Hitler never had an interaction with Stephanie because he felt shy to initiate a conversation with her; he loathed those who flirted with her especially the military officers calling them 'conceited blockheads'. Stephanie, in an interview mentions that she recieved an anonymous love letter which asked her to wait for him until he graduates. Later she realises that it was Hitler's. In June 1906, Stefanie allegedly gave Hitler a smile and a flower from her bouquet as she was passing him in her carriage; Kubizek writes that he had never seen Hitler that happy and excited before. When Hitler recieved that flower, he trembled and said, "she loves me"! Stephanie once coldly ignored his gaze which made Hitler too sad. He finally started planning to kidnap her and commit suicide along with her by jumping off a bridge into the Danube. In 1907, Hitler's mother, Klara Hitler, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died on 21 December after intense suffering involving daily medication with iodoform, a foul-smelling and painful corrosive treatment typically used at the time and administered by Bloch. Because of the poor economic situation of the Hitler family, Bloch charged reduced prices, sometimes taking no fee at all. His mother was the only person who he genuinely loved and cared for. By, the year 1913, Stephanie got married to an Austrian military officer; what happened to Hitler's feelings later and how he coped with them is not mentioned in any historical records.
1914, the first world war began. During this time, Hitler was living in Munich and he voluntarily enlisted himself in the Bavarian army. By the end of this great war, Germany experienced a devasting blow to itself especially after the Treaty of Versailles that Hitler had always mentioned in his speeches to provoke Germans about the injustice that the world has done to Germany. He believed that Germany was stabbed in her back by the civilian leaders at home- Jews, Marxists and those who signed the armistice that ended the fighting (referred to the November criminals by Hitler).
Hitler's personality which is largely shaped by his traumatic and unpleasant experiences is often associated with several psychological disorders including bipolar, schizophrenia, hysteria, post traumatic stress disorder and psychopathy. He had been diagnosed by various psychiatrists during and after his lifetime, some of them being prominent figures in the history of psychology like Walter C. Langer and Erich Fromm. Hitler regularly consumed methamphetamine, barbiturates, amphetamine, opiates and cocaine. In 2015, Norman Ohler published a work Der totale Rausch, in which he claims that all of Hitler's irrational behavior can be attributed to his excessive drug use. Though a lot of Hitler's actions can be attributed to his past experiences that he was unable to forget, several psychologists claim that his clever actions and intelligent military strategies do not settle well with mental abnormality and dissociative tendencies. Besides, he had never been personally and directly diagnosed by any psychiatrist, and many modern psychologists and researchers claim this practice to be a fatal abuse to psychiatry. Hence, we cannot conclude if he indeed had any mental illnesses. Some historians believe that Hitler was angered by the Jewish doctor who was in charge of his mother's treatment before she died. They believe, his resentment towards the Jews may have taken a form from there and his Jewish love interest Stephanie probably have played a part in it. While others state, Adolf Hitler was a rational man who was not bound with prejudices, rather he believed what he wanted to.
The girl with Hitler in the image above is Rosa Bernile Nienau, who is Jewish by her origin. She died of polio in 1943, and was probably the only Jew that Hitler mourned. Hard to believe right? Why would Hitler show sympathy towards a Jewish girl no matter how puny or adorable she is, if he was prejudiced about the entire race? There are lot of pictures of him clicked with this little girl which are photographed by Hoffman, one of Hitler's long known companion. Many scholars and world leaders believed that these pictures were taken to only promote Nazi propaganda, but Hoffman's interviews and written records state the otherwise. Hitler had a rather genuine affection for the girl, and she would also knit him socks, and send him gifts and cards that he cherished to gain. Seventeen letters have been found that they both exchanged with each other, all dated between 1933 to 1938 (a year before the second world war was to begin). Bernile refered to him as Uncle Hitler and Adolf in return expressed much greater affection despite the fact, she was a Jew. This as a result explains that Hitler's racial discrimination towards the Jews was not a result of his prejudices or his political views about Germans being the superior Aryan race but simply the hatred and resentment towards a few Jews that made him desire the doom of all. The truth has to be noted that Hitler himself did not believe all the myths and lies he spread about the Jews amongst the Austrian and the Germans, he only wanted them to believe those lies so his cruel acts of mass murders and genocides could be defended and that his people would not show any sympathies towards them.
On 30 April 1945, after hearing the news of Soviet success over the Germans and captured booths by the Red Army, Hitler shot himself in the head and died. His wife, a few high ranking officers and his several other minions also committed suicide during the fall of Berlin. His legacy even today holds nothing but fear and resentment across the masses.